Hi Sweet Friends,
I’ve never broken a blog into two parts before. But let’s be honest, no one should have to take a week of vacation from work to read my blog, so I’m trying to learn to write in bite-size portions instead of the epic trilogies that I usually crank out. Can we just be honest one more time? We are all busy and there is a world of things screaming for our attention. Good things. I don’t want to use your time selfishly for my own affirmation or desire for an audience. I long to communicate well and concisely the heart of God as I seek Him and He graciously leads me. I won’t always do that accurately or well. I’m a work in progress. He is growing me up. But, thank you for being on this journey with me. That said, let’s pick up where we left off with God telling His children, Israel, that they made the mistake of thinking He was just like them in Psalm 50:21.
Let’s look at the children of Israel in Numbers 11. God had let them witness miracles that they could never forget as proof of His love and power. He rescued them from over 400 years of slavery in Egypt and let them defeat enemies far stronger and more numerous than they were. And what did He ask of them? What was His one requirement for His continued miraculous workings on their behalf and His provision that boggled the mind? He asked that they worship only Him and live differently than the world without a God lives. He wanted to show the world what God is like through a people who loved, worshiped, believed, and trusted God to be all that He says He is and to continually provide for them. He asked them to let Him work for them. He asked them to believe, to show Him to the world through their trust. What did they do?
Exodus 16 tells us that the Israelites reminisced about their good life in Egypt as slaves and accused Moses of bringing them to the wilderness to kill them. God tells us what He is doing in verse 4: “That I may test them, whether or not they will walk in my instruction.” When they got tired of God’s provision for them in manna, they demanded meat. God sent meat. When they complained about water, God let it flow from rocks. When God showed them the good land He wanted to give them, they said they were too small and weak and could never defeat the inhabitants of the land. God promised them that He would defeat armies for them. They answered with, “We want to go back to Egypt.” Is slavery really better than trusting God? They forgot what they had been saved from. So do we. This whole story was about God rescuing a people in bondage and showing the world His greatness and glory by them letting Him show what He could do. He didn’t choose Israel because they were powerful or righteous. Quite the opposite. It was their neediness that showed His greatness. Their inability showcased God’s ability. This was never about Israel being great. It was about Israel showing the world that God is great. God asked Israel to let Him be great for them, and they looked around and said, “No thanks.” The sin that caused war in heaven and brought the curse to earth echoed in the ears of the Israelites, and they said, “We want what we don’t have.” In I Samuel 8, even after witnessing all of the miracles and rescues and God’s provisions for them, Israel tells God that they want a king. God had asked them to live differently than the world that appointed earthly kings. God asked them to let Him be their King and Protector and Provider. Verse 7 always makes me cry when God says, “…they have rejected Me as their King.” Even after God told Samuel to tell them the terrible cost of having an earthly king and how they would regret it, verses 19 and 20 say, “But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, and our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.’” God instructed Samuel to give them what they demanded. They had to reap the consequences of demanding their way and not God’s way to understand. God could have ended it all there. He could have walked away forever and let them rot in their self-made mess. But He had made a promise. From the beginning there was a plan to save humanity. And it wasn’t dependent on man to get it right. The whole story of Israel was about God showing the world His love and provision for them. About Him asking them to simply obey and trust Him. To let Him be God. He asks the same of us. And as a result of our realization that we are in desperate need for Him, we realize our desperate need for a Savior. Just as God kept giving Israel opportunities to trust Him, to test them and see what was in their hearts, so God does us.
Our church volunteers at a community kitchen in town. It’s a wonderful, well run, loving establishment. I’m always afraid I’m going to do something stupid and shut them down. They have lots of rules and codes that must be complied with for the sake of health and cleanliness. Then there are the considerations that must be made because of human nature. Portions must be even and equal or an outcry of ‘Unfair!” is heard from the masses. If someone looks at their neighbor’s plate and sees two small brownies to make up for the large one on their plate because of my innate inability to cut brownies evenly, someone call 911. And heaven forbid if you got more gravy than me. The ugly part of me wants to jump across the counter and give a speech starting with, “What part of free do you not understand? You don’t have to be hungry today. You’re welcome!” But the enlightened side of me grieves at our human condition apart from grace and says, “I get it. Me too, God. Me too.” Most of our sweet friends at the kitchen are so gracious and thankful, but we don’t have to look far in any part of humanity to recognize our own struggles, whether we say them out loud or not. Every pain and disappointment begs the questions, “Will I trust God to provide? Can I believe that His provision is good for me? Will I let Him be my King or will I look around me and say, ‘Make me like all the other nations.’?” Will I scream that someone’s brownie is bigger than mine, that someone has a better life, that others don’t have to suffer as I do? I don’t say that flippantly. Our pain is very real. But be careful of the heart. Wouldn’t a good God relieve our pain? And God says, “You thought I was just like you.” God is doing much more in us than relieving our pain or making us happy. Sometimes that is what is happening, and sometimes we just hurt. Both are to be used to draw us to God and lead us to thank Him for His provision for us, the ones that feel good, and the ones that don’t.
I ended my last blog with the verses in Psalm 50 that remind us that sacrifices of thanksgiving honor God. He asks us to call upon Him, trust Him, thank Him, honor Him, and watch His salvation for us. He wants us to show the world that our hope is in Him alone, and He can be trusted. I pray that God would create a spirit of thanksgiving in us. I watched with tears streaming down my face many of the D-Day celebrations and remembrances. So humbling. One of the veterans relived his parachuting into Normandy with a parachute drop. He was applauded and cheered as the hero that he is. I heard a man from the crowd shout, “Thank you, Sir, for my freedom.” Amen! As Americans, do we really know and believe what we’ve been saved from? Do we really know what it cost? As God’s redeemed, do we really know and believe what we have been saved from? Do we really know what it cost? If we did, surely all we could do is say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Lord, give us grateful hearts. And thank you for not being just like us.
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